


Why'd They Change It, I Can't Say (People Just Liked It Better That Way)

by avalanchecaster



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Autism, Canonical Child Abuse, Comic / Show Fusion, Dysfunctional Family, Gender Issues, Multi, Post-Canon, Sibling Bonding, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-01 07:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17863367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalanchecaster/pseuds/avalanchecaster
Summary: “So,” Klaus announced and clapped his hands together, “What’s the plan, team? Champagne and confetti? Shots? How are we celebrating the not-end of the world?”“We’re thirteen, dipshit,” Diego responded, and then took a moment to process that for himself. “Fuck.”Number Five looked like he wanted to say something along the lines of “Now you know how I feel”, but he was man enough not to. Klaus applauded him in his head. He wouldn’t have had the restraint.-Or, the Hargreeves siblings after the apocalypse.(On mini-hiatus until summer.)





	1. Time, Time, Time (See What’s Become Of Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So, this is technically my first fanfiction ever. Yeah, I know. I wrote a couple of smaller pieces in high school, but I never bothered posting them. Something about the Umbrella Academy just really made me want to tell this story. Any comments would be appreciated! Thank you for reading.

Blue. Bright, flashing, neon blue, surrounding the lot of them. Klaus had done this before- twice, in fact- but this was worse, somehow. His brain pounded against his skull, and his limbs went limp, as if he could move them but it wouldn’t be worth the energy. Where the last times were cotton and jet-lag, this was pure energy, zipping around his body and searching for an outlet. 

Those were the changes that demanded attention, but there were other, more subtle differences. He felt smaller. He had never been short by any means, especially in a good pair of stilettos, but his entire body felt too close to the ground and strangely calm, aside from the literal time travel magic surging through it. There was no desire, no burning, searing itch to be scratched. This body, this tiny, soft-skinned boy, had never taken drugs, not even Advil. It wasn’t like the dry-mouth, shaking hands, full-body shakes of his recent sobriety. No, it had been too many years since Klaus could say he felt this calm in his own skin.

The rest of his family seemed to be experiencing the same symptoms. Luther was still holding Vanya in his arms, but his face was downcast, expression pinched. Allison had dropped the hands on either side of her to clutch at her head, and Diego did the same, digging the heel of his hand into the center of his forehead as if it would alleviate the pressure. Number Five was the only one seemingly unaffected by the changes.

To his left, Klaus felt a weight. A slight pressure against his shoulder. He turned to it.

Ben’s statue in the yard immortalized him at this exact age. Klaus never really knew the reason their father had for that, but he had his theories. These years were the golden age for the Umbrella Academy, before they started to rebel against their father’s mission, and it made sense that if Hargreeves wanted to memorialize one of them it would be in the visage of the ever-obedient child. Looking at him now, Klaus realized how inaccurate that statue truly was. 

He enveloped the boy, arms wrapping tight around him as if he might disappear again. They could speak every day, and they had had long, winding conversations about politics and movies and music. In many ways, Klaus had never really lost Ben. But ‘many ways’ wasn’t all ways, and it had been years since he had hugged his brother. He felt real in a way his ghost hadn’t, not during that failed game of patty-cake, and not even during that suckerpunch. This was real with a capital “R”, no almost’s and no conditions.

“Ben,” came a gasping voice behind him, and soon their hug was a few bodies heavier. Even Luther joined, huddling over them with Vanya taking up his arms. 

This was his family, his brothers and sisters, and they were alright. They were going to be alright. 

It was only when they separated that Klaus took in the rest of their surroundings. Gone were the sweeping ceilings and marble arches of the Icarus Theater. They were on a roof- the roof of the Academy- with only the moon and the clear night sky above them. This place had never been a source of comfort for Klaus. The others would escape up here when they could, especially Allison and Luther, but he had never seen the point in trying to distance himself from the Academy without putting actual, physical distance between him and it. He would rather take the bus downtown and spend his time in clubs and alleyways than spend it stuck on this roof. It was far too reminiscent of the rest of his life, the entire world stretched out beyond him, close enough to see but not to touch. 

Diego was the first to speak. “Where-  _ When _ are we?”

Number Five brushed his hands against his uniform, which they all were wearing now. God, this entire thing was like a particularly detailed nightmare, the scratch of the cuffs against his wrist throwing Klaus more thoroughly back to his childhood than the actual time travel he just experienced. “The night before I left, I would guess. Before anything changed,” Five said.

“So we’re, what? Twelve, thirteen? What would that make this?” Diego asked again.

“2002,” Luther answered.

“Damn, and we were so close to saving the twin towers,” Klaus snapped his fingers. Luther glared at him, shifting Vanya into a better position for his younger body to hold. 

“Are we… us?” Allison asked, testing out her voice. She rubbed at her throat as if she were soothing a phantom pain, then at everyone’s blank looks, she elaborated. “Are we in our younger bodies or are we going to be running into our normal thirteen-year-old selves any time soon?”

They all looked to Number Five again. He rolled his eyes. “There shouldn’t be any issues. It’s our consciousness that’s been transported into our thirteen-year-old bodies; the second we arrived here, our old selves should have disappeared. That’s why Ben’s here.”

Klaus took a moment to look at Ben again. The entire thing seemed like a dream, Ben especially. Klaus had spent so many years looking at the fuzzy, something’s-not-quite-right ghost of his brother that seeing him in the flesh, whole and alive and so clearly tangible, was messing with his brain. Ben had never really looked  _ right _ when he was alive- his skin moving in odd ways, his shadow seeming to drape around him, his face sharp and menacing in the corner of Klaus’ eyes- but when he looked directly at him, it all seemed to disappear. 

“So,” Klaus announced and clapped his hands together, “What’s the plan, team? Champagne and confetti? Shots? How are we celebrating the not-end of the world?”

“We’re thirteen, dipshit,” Diego responded, and then took a moment to process that for himself. “Fuck.”

Number Five looked like he wanted to say something along the lines of “Now you know how I feel”, but he was man enough not to. Klaus applauded him in his head. He wouldn’t have had the restraint. 

They were all so young. Number Five was one thing; it had been years since Klaus had seen him, and in all reality he had come back so different from the brother they once knew that seeing him again was more like meeting a stranger with a ghost’s face. Klaus had never seen Five’s ghost. Not in all the months after he disappeared, when Klaus would lay awake at night and stare at the ceiling and push past his fears and his doubts in a desperate attempt to see him. It was exhausting, but it left him absolutely sure that Five was ok. That Five was just somewhere else. That Five was just an asshole who refused to come back. Turned out only half of that was true. 

The others threw him off in little ways. Luther’s hair was too light, almost bleach blonde with all the sun he used to get. Diego was scarless and beardless, and Klaus didn’t know which one he disliked more. Ben was here, which was weird on its own. Allison and Vanya were both just too small, especially Vanya, who had always been the tiniest member of their patchwork family. 

He supposed he must look weird too, thirteen and almost into puberty. Limbs too long for the rest of his body, stuck somewhere in the awkward phase between being a child and being a slightly older child. They all looked just a little too similar, the same outfits, the same age, the same desperate need for approval from a man who would never give it to them. They had been children, but not really. Not very different from them now. 

It seemed his existential questioning of the reality at hand would need to wait for later though, as their tenuous calm was interrupted by the opening of the roof’s access door. 

It was their father, younger than Klaus had last seen him but not by much. Like most things regarding the eccentric billionaire-philanthropist, his appearance rarely changed, rarely deviated from its established self. In all the years he had known the man, Klaus had never seen him so much as cut his hair differently. None of them had. It could have been comforting, the immutable fact of their father’s nature, if it weren’t so incredibly isolating. 

He seemed to take in their appearance, all seven of his charges gathered on the rooftop, one of them unconcious, and paused for half a moment. Then he started speaking. 

“Why are you lot out of bed? Cease whatever foolishness this is and go back downstairs,” he barked out. There was something about that voice that made Klaus want to obey, if only to avoid the arguments that would ensue if he didn’t. Nobody moved.

“Have you gone deaf? I said go back downstairs,” the old man tried again, advancing towards them. 

Surprisingly, it was Allison that stepped forward. “We have to tell you something-”

“I don’t want to hear it. If you think you can just do whatever you please at whatever hour you please, than I can assure you you’re mistaken,” at this point, he reached Allison and grabbed her arm in his hand.

“ _ I heard a rumor that you shut up and listen to me for once in your life, _ ” she hissed back, snatching her arm out of his grasp. Everyone tensed.

None of them had ever used their powers against their father, not as adults and especially not as children. Allison had grown to use her powers almost constantly in her teenage years, but Klaus had never seen her use it on anyone in the house. It was an unspoken rule, one they abided out of whatever miniscule amount of respect or affection that kept the house standing upright. The respect they seemed to have lost in the week leading up to the end of the world. 

“This whole thing had a purpose, right? That’s what you said. That one day we would be in charge of protecting everyone who couldn’t protect themselves. Well, we did it. Everything you ever wanted from us- your perfect team- we did it. So you know what? I  _ am  _ going to sleep, not because you ordered me to, but because I’ve had a long week, and I just helped save the world, and I deserve to lay down,” her voice cracked at the end, but no on would have commented on it. The entire roof was at a standstill, perfectly enthralled by her words, her defiance.

Of all the people to act out like this, Allison was just under Luther in terms of shock-value, which seemed to spark something in whatever dormant part of their father’s brain let him listen to what other people said.

Klaus remembered a lot about being thirteen. He remembered going on missions, protecting people and killing bad guys, feeling on top of the world. Feeling like nothing could touch him. Only to return to the Academy and be reminded that no matter how powerful he was out in the world, nothing could protect him inside his own home. And, above it all, nothing could protect him inside his own head. He was lucky, he could see Ben and Dave- and God, apparently, though he still wasn’t quite sure about the validity of that vision- but he was also cursed to never have a moment of peace, of actual solitude. His life was the dead or the drugs or both. Their father made them into the people they were today, just as he had made them all hate him for it. 

It was almost comical, seeing this little girl- or, this Allison in little-Allison’s body- talk back to him like that. As they watched, she pushed past him towards the door. When she reached it, she looked back at them. “Well?” she asked.

Well, there wasn’t much to say to that. Klaus laced his fingers with Ben’s and tugged him along, shrugging at the glare he got from his father. “I could sleep,” he offered back to the others, hoping to instill them with enough bravado to just walk past the man.

It worked. Five came first, without sparing Hargreeves a second look, leaving Luther and Diego to decide for themselves. They stepped forward together, and whether it was a shocking moment of solidarity between the two or a flare of their competitive nature forcing them to not be last, it did its job, and they headed downstairs. 

Father must have realized that whatever the situation was, it required more planning on his part to address, because he didn’t follow them. 

Walking through the house now was different than it was when he first returned for the funeral. Mostly because of his height, but the house itself was different too. It was immaculate, of course, but as they passed through the place looked more and more homely. Lived in. The flash cards were still on the wall, and woah were those fucked up to his adult brain, and there was a pair of dirty sneakers in one of the hallways, a granola bar wrapper on one of the tables. Infractions that used to mean hour long lectures when they did them as children. Or temporary removal from field work. Klaus remembered when that was a threat and not an incentive. 

None of them wanted to be alone, that was obvious. It would be too easy to get to them if they weren’t together. So, with very little communication, they worked quickly and methodically to strip their beds and gather in Luther’s room. Not because he was Number One. No, if these past few years had done anything to them, it had thoroughly dissuaded them of any importance their numbers could have once held. But because his was the biggest, and located at the most strategic point. Klaus honestly couldn’t have given two shits where they slept, just that they were somewhere safe. 

Luther laid Vanya in the center of their pile-bed, and the arrangements were simple after that. Diego claimed the spot closest to the door, curled up in a way that would allow him easy access to the knives he had shoved under him. Five placed himself against the wall, half-slumped upright. Luther and Allison paired off, obviously, curled protectively around each other, and Klaus pulled Ben down next to him. 

“What now?” Ben asked, sleepily. Ghosts couldn’t get tired, so the feeling must have been overwhelming after so many years of its absence. 

“I guess we’ll figure that out in the morning,” Klaus responded.

“Ok,” he nodded, shuffling further under the covers. Ben always trusted him too easily, even after all these years, and Klaus could feel his throat burning with the weight of it.

“Ok,” he said back. Ok. 


	2. Let Me Sleep All Night (In Your Soul Kitchen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It hit her like a head-on collision. Luther. The Apocalypse. Vanya. Shit, where was Vanya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Here's the next chapter. I think I'm gonna start updating regularly on Sundays after this, but today is my birthday so I thought I'd go ahead and treat myself. The responses to this fic have been overwhelming, and I've loved reading all of your comments so far!
> 
> This chapter is from Allison's POV, and the next is gonna be Diego's, but I haven't quite figured out who I want to write from next. Any preferences?

Allison hadn’t slept in the same bed as another human being in months, not since the final argument that ended her threadbare marriage. Her rumors changed people, yes, but people changed on their own just fine. Years old rumors didn’t hold nearly as much power as the shock of watching your wife mind-control your daughter, apparently, and she had been barred from the house sooner than she could offer a single word in her defense. She didn’t know what she would have said. Probably another rumor. Things were different then.

What she meant to say is that she hadn’t slept with someone in months, so waking up against the warmth of another body was confusing, to say the least. She lay there for a few moments, running her fingers over the strangely familiar bedding, processing her surroundings.

It hit her like a head-on collision. Luther. The Apocalypse. _Vanya_. Shit, where was Vanya.

She lifted herself up, careful not to disrupt Luther as she surveyed the room. God, they were so young. She hadn’t gotten a good look, up on the roof, before they were interrupted , and the rest of the night had past by in a haze as if she had been placed on auto-pilot. She was the first to wake, it seemed. Even Five was passed out where he sat against the wall. She could just barely see Ben from behind Klaus, not a hair out of place.

Vanya lay between them, still unconscious but breathing steadily, those bangs she had taken so long to grow out of framing her face. Allison saw her, teeming with power, eyes white and cold as snow. Allison saw her, asleep, a child, unaware of anything that had happened in the last couple of hours. She was her sister, and she had ended the world, and they were all responsible for it in some way.

Allison didn’t know how to feel about her, but she did know that she didn’t deserve what happened to her. No, it didn’t just happen, she couldn’t think about it like that. Vanya didn’t deserve what they _did_ to her. They had all been left emotionally destitute by their father, but Vanya was right, they were adults now. They could make their own choices. And they had chosen to shut her out, just like they always had.

Her sister had always been small, but now she looked practically nonexistent, shrouded by the blankets and betrayed by her childhood height. Her voice, her stature, and her movements always seemed calculated to make her appear as small as possible. Allison didn’t really know how to treat a Vanya that took up space. That night had made her feel a lot of things, helpless being chief among them, and she rubbed unconsciously at her restored throat. The cut had hurt, but the aftermath had been worse. Every word she tried to say, every sound she tried to make scratched at her torn vocal chords, eating her from the inside. Silence was a harrowing punishment for all the years she had misused her voice.

She wasn’t silent now. Allison had to admit that she was selfishly grateful for the turn of events. She didn’t really know how she would have dealt with it if they had saved the world and she had been stuck without a voice.

None of it really mattered now, except in the ways it did. She loved Vanya, and Vanya had tried to kill her. Vanya loved her, and she had let her be locked away. Allison longed for her actual thirteen-year-old mind, where people were either good or bad and there was absolutely no inbetween. No shades of grey.

It seemed her movement had disturbed one of them, and she found herself staring into Ben’s eyes where he peered at her over Klaus’ shoulder.

“Hey,” he whispered. Klaus let out a small snore.

How many years had it been? How many years of not believing Klaus when he talked about Ben? How many years of hating him for it, however much she pretended she didn’t? Every day they had spent together had made it all too obvious how little they actually knew about each other.

“Hey,” she whispered back.

“This is crazy, isn’t it?” he asked, and Allison could feel the tears building behind her eyes.

“Yeah,” she replied wetly, “really fucking crazy.”

Ben reaches his arm across their two siblings, catching her hand in his and squeezing it gently. He had always been so good, too good for all of this, and Allison was glad for the reminder that it wasn’t just her misremembering him as better because he was gone.

Klaus grumbled under him, shifting away from the weight that was now leaning on him. Vanya was dead to the world, and Allison was starting to feel uneasy about it. She was probably exhausted, both from the time travel and the whole, you know, _starting the apocalypse_ thing, but Allison hoped she would wake up quickly. They needed to talk, and soon. Whatever else happened after this, they would need to face it together. United.

They were all still in their uniforms, too tired to change out of them. Switching from their identical uniforms into their identical pajamas just seemed redundant. The things Allison wanted to do, like put on real clothes and take a hot shower and talk to Luther about, well, everything didn’t correspond with the things she knew they needed to do, like find a way to wake up Vanya and talk to their father and figure out what came next. The thought made her want to lay back down, if only to put off having to exist for another hour or two. But she was an adult now, a mother, and not taking responsibility was what had gotten her here in the first place.

Luther’s room was a mess, which was probably a recent phenomenon in the house. Allison remembered the very first decoration she ever added to her room, a single poster from a magazine she had actually gotten permission to buy. It hadn’t come from her father, but her mother, and she had used way too much tape to tack it up. She thought it might fall off and get ruined. She was eleven, and it seemed like the most important thing she’d ever owned. At that age, it probably was.

She could see a few model rockets, some posters, and stacks upon stacks of books. A far cry from the collection he grew later in his teens but also a far cry from the empty, beige rooms they had spent most of their childhood stuck in. Allison was well off now, all of it her own money from her own work, and she lavished her daughter’s room with every toy, accessory, and decoration she had ever asked for. For the entire house to be so eccentrically decorated, one would think the Hargreeves children’s rooms wouldn’t look like pay-by-the-hour motel rooms. But they did, they always had. The paint and the posters could cover it up, but they could never turn it into something it wasn’t.

She raised herself up as quietly as possible, and she saw Ben attempting the same with no help from Klaus. She almost laughed.

Once he got himself unburdened, they both stepped over Diego, who had managed to wrap himself in at least three of the blankets they had brought into the room. Allison stepped out into the hall, closing the door slowly behind her.

“We’re gonna need to talk to dad,” Ben said.

“I know,” she sighed. “But first, I need a shower. And something else to wear.”

At that, they both looked down. God these uniforms were ridiculous. What was more ridiculous was how long they had actually worn them, Klaus excluded. Years of her life trying so hard to pretend that something that so clearly homogenized her and her siblings actually distinguished her from the rest of the world. Being Number Three was never what made her unique, but being Allison did. And Allison wanted to put on a pair of jeans.

“I’m sure Klaus has something tucked away,” Ben said, and they headed off towards the bathrooms.

There were two directly opposite of each other. They used to shower in pairs, back when every part of their lives was scheduled down to the minute. Allison and Vanya first, then Luther and Diego, then Five and Klaus. Ben always went last. Allison never really wondered why, but now it seemed stupid she had never asked.

“Why did you always go last?” No time like the present. Or the past. Whichever one this could be considered.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“When we were kids. Dad always made you shower last. It’s kinda stupid considering how long it takes Klaus to get ready for anything,” she reasoned.  

“Oh,” he said. Ben never really blushed, per se, but his cheeks darkened a sort of greenish blue color. She used to think that was weird, but to her adult mind it looked sweet.  “I guess it was the whole thing about the extra appendages.” He gestured vaguely towards his chest.

“Oh,” Allison echoed. “Do you… wash them?”

She’d never sat down and considered the logistics of Ben’s powers. By the time she was old enough to have shrugged off her teenage narcissism, Ben was already gone and everyone else followed soon after.

“Not really. But I guess Dad thought I did. Or, thought I should,” he shrugged. “They mostly just clean themselves.”

She tried to imagine that and had to stop herself from scrunching her nose. Fair enough.

“I’ll be out soon, I just wanna wash all of this off of me,” she gestured to body even though there wasn’t anything wrong with her appearance. She was pretty sure Ben understood anyway.

“Yeah, me too,” he said, and they parted ways.

The bathroom had cubbies. That was the first thing she noticed when she closed the door. It had been _years_ since she’d seen those things, and it was the sight of her number sticker that sent her into the first breakdown of the day.

They had been so young. They were so young, still. Even without the bodies, they were children. Never allowed to grow up, never allowed to be their own people. Their shampoos and soaps, all the same, stuck into wooden cubbies labeled with the numbers that functioned as their names for the first ten years of their lives. Like any other child, it had taken her quite a bit of growing to realize that her name wasn’t simply a fact. It was a choice. Her father’s choice. And he had chosen to give them numbers that ranked them in terms of importance.

Other kids didn’t have to ‘get used’ to their names. It had taken all of them so long to start responding to the names Grace had given them. Allison was a real name, and a pretty one at that, but at ten years old it was far too late for the name to be _hers_. Every part of herself was borrowed: her name from her mother, her personality from her siblings, and her purpose from her father. It was no big shock that she would view other people as malleable when she herself had no true form.

The little girl in the mirror was crying. Her face was blotchy, the tears dragging wet tracks down her cheeks and falling onto the countertop. She gripped the edges of the sink till her knuckles whitened, and it would have hurt if she could honestly feel any part of her body. The girl was in pain, but Allison was floating somewhere above her, watching. Waiting.  

Eventually she was able to muster up enough energy to start the shower. She dropped all her clothes on the floor and stepped in, reveled in the heat of the water. She felt both hyper aware of every drop as it panged against her new skin and utterly numb to it all. It wasn’t an entirely new feeling, but it hadn’t been this strong since the custody ruling had gone through. Another moment when she had lost everything.

But, that wasn't right. That wasn’t what was happening here. She wasn’t sure, yet, exactly what this ordeal had given her, but it hadn’t been loss. If she didn’t think about her daughter- and she wasn’t going to think about Claire, about the last time she had spoken to her, the last time she held her baby in her arms and told her she loved her- then she hadn’t lost anything at all.

Allison couldn’t think about her daughter, because if she thought about her daughter she wouldn’t make it out of this shower.

It took a few minutes but eventually she was able to turn off the water and wrap herself in one of the bathrobes on the wall. They were all grey, but they were soft and fluffy so she let it slide. There wasn’t much left to do in the bathroom after that, just go to her room and grab a new pair of clothes, but she was reluctant to leave. The bathroom had been one of the few rooms with a lock on it, and they had all abused that fact regularly.

When she moved out and bought her first house, she made sure every door had a lock on it. Sometimes she would lock the door to that big, empty, master bedroom and just sit there, waiting. Nothing ever happened. She wasn’t sure what she expected.

She slipped down the hallway towards her room. The other bathroom was still closed, but Allison thought Ben deserved a little time to reconcile with the fact that he had a body again, so she left him to his own devices.  

Her room wasn’t as impersonal as Luther’s, but it was different. There weren’t any pictures of her hanging on the walls. Her father hadn’t let her start acting until _after_ everything had already started to fall apart. Concessions were easier to make than new children, after all. But her vanity was still there, and the pink armchair, and the fake mini-chandeliers.

All she had in her closet were those stupid uniforms and half a dozen headbands. There was also a steadily growing collection of scrunchies and neutral makeup in her vanity drawer. She put on the shirt and the skirt and the knee-highs, but decided to forego the rest of the ensemble. Once the oxfords were on her feet, she padded the couple of steps it took to put her back in Luther’s room.

Five was awake now, and he had somehow managed to find a pen and some paper. He was mouthing as he scribbled on it, words and equations that Allison couldn’t parse out from this distance. Klaus was awake too, scrubbing absently at his eyes as he looked around the room.

“Where’s Ben?” he asked, the edge in his voice at odds with the rest of his demeanor.

“He’s just in the bathroom,” she said, putting up her hands. Allison would never call Klaus anyone’s knight in shining armor, especially not younger Klaus, but they all had soft spots when it came to defending one another.

The team-ups had been natural, although she was sure their father never expected them. Her and Luther, Klaus and Ben, Diego and Vanya before… well, before everything that happened between Diego and Vanya. Five hadn’t really liked any of them when it came down to it. He was always focused on his powers, on reaching that next level. His devotion to the cause could have rivalled Luther’s if he actually cared about their father in the slightest. He was probably the first one to realize the futility of it all. Too bad he hadn’t stuck around to warn the rest of them.

“Oh,” Klaus said. “Good, he probably needs to wash off the whole _Twelve Years A Ghost_ thing he’s got going on.”

Five snorted from his corner. Allison just rolled her eyes.

Their noise was waking up the other two. Diego tried to roll away from them only to get caught up in his cocoon of duvets. Luther just opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a few moments. She let him take his time because it seemed like they would have plenty of it in the coming days. She was also angry at him. Angry at all of them, if she was being honest. Angry at the sun for shining and the world for turning. Angry at herself, most of all, but she was used to that by now.

“How’s Vanya?” she directed the question at Five, likely the only person in the entire house with any idea what was going on.

“Not sure,” he replied. He didn’t even look up from his writing.

Well, there went that idea.

Allison circled around her sister for a moment. She used to have issues making her own decisions, living without a schedule, without someone choosing for her, but that had been years ago. It wouldn’t work for her now. She knelt at Vanya’s side and brushed back her hair. Her skin was tepid, a little clammy, but the touch didn’t stir her. Neither did the shake to her shoulder. Or the other, stronger shake after that.

Ok. That was ok. Allison just needed to breath and take stock of the situation.

“She’s not dead, if that’s what you’re worried about. It wouldn’t be that easy,” Five called out to her.

“Wow, way to read the room, Five,” Klaus replied, shooting an unreadable look towards Vanya’s body.

“You never told us what happened. That night you were with Vanya,” the voice came from behind her. It was Luther. Of course it was Luther.

“Does it matter? After everything else?” she asked.

“She slit your throat, Allison.”

“Yeah, and you almost choked her to death. What a pair you two make,” she shot back. She didn’t want to deal with any of this. They weren’t actually thirteen, there was no reason for them to act like they were.

“She’s got you there, dude,” Diego said, voice muffled by the covers.

The room stilled after that, all of them waiting for someone else to take charge and break the silence. No one did, but eventually Ben came back, clad in the same uniform he had left in, and Five took that moment to speak up.

“If everything worked how it should have- and that is a major if- then today should be the day that I travelled into the future. Whatever was supposed to happen here, with you guys, with Vanya, it started here. We can’t let it end the way it did the first time around,” he punctuated each sentence with a scribble on the notepad. Allison wondered for a second if this was all for show and the paper was just meaningless doodles, but Five didn’t seem like the the type of man to bother with those theatrics.

“Shouldn’t everything be different just by us being hear?” asked Luther.

Five tilted his head in a so-so motion. “Technically. But just being here doesn’t mean Vanya won’t try to start the apocalypse again. It’s her destiny, or whatever you want to call it. The series of events that are supposed to happen in order to ensure the world follows its natural path. We have to make something worth her going against that.”

“Like a family,” Allison said. “A real one.”

“Yeah,” Five said, “Something like that.”

Allison took the moment to give Luther a pointed stare, which he, to his credit, met full on. He looked conflicted. Allison didn’t want conflicted, she wanted _sorry_.

“What about dad?” Ben piped up from the doorway. His hands were wringing each other, tangling in his jacket then back to each other then back to his jacket.

“What about him?” Five ask, flippantly.

“What are we gonna tell him? You know he’s gonna ask questions. And I’m not gonna pretend to be thirteen again,” he argued.

The room collectively shuddered at the thought.

“Allison pretty much ruined our chances at that last night,” Diego said, finally free from his pillow prison. “We’ll just tell the old man and let him do what he wants. He’s never listened to us before and he probably isn’t gonna start today.”

They didn’t have much to say to that. Diego was right. Sir Reginald Hargreeves was an unknown and uncontrollable variable.

“Breakfast?” she asked, and they all nodded their agreement.

None of them wanted to leave Vanya alone, lest she wake up, but they needed to face their father as the most united front they could, and none of them wanted to be removed from the conversation. They ended up leaving her where she was, tucked under half a dozen blankets and surrounded by pillows. Maybe if she woke up, it would throw her off enough to come looking for answers.

Klaus made a quick detour to his room. Clothes were a contested point at this age, and like most items banned from the house, at least one of them had a veritable stash of it. Klaus’ was clothes and booze and narcotics. Allison's had been movies and darker makeup and a single bottle of purple hair dye that had gotten her in the most trouble of her life. He returned a minute later in a pair of actual jeans and a t-shirt with a garish floral pattern. Dad would probably throw a fit when he saw him. Allison was strangely fine with that.

Diego eyed him with envy, tugging at the wrists of his jacket. Diego had been one of the first to verbally argue against the uniforms, impractical as they were. That’s what got them the jumpsuits, though Allison was pretty sure that wasn’t what he meant.

Allison didn’t know what time it was, but when they got downstairs the food hadn’t yet been served, so it couldn’t have been too late.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves sat at the head of the table, spine straight and shoulders pulled back, imposing as always. Allison wanted to ask him all the questions that had fallen to the wayside before his death. He wasn’t in her life anymore, so it didn’t matter if he ever actually loved her. Except, it definitely did.

She had always sat to his left, Luther to his right, a chair between them. They never spoke, they never chewed loudly or put their elbows on the table. They were accent pieces. Part of the decor.

There was no record playing. The lack of noise set her on edge, and she knew that Hargreeves knew that this wouldn’t be a normal breakfast.

None of them bothered to sit where they were supposed to. Diego sat at the opposite head of the table, as far away from their father as possible. Allison sat next to Luther, and Klaus perched himself on the table, in front of Ben. Five also planted himself firmly on top of the table. While Klaus was probably just used to sitting in odd positions now a days, Five was probably doing it to make a point. Hargreeves’ already tight expression tightened even further.

“Children,” he began, and his voice was as icy as it had ever been. “I believe an explanation is owed.”

“Oh I bet you do,” muttered Diego, and their father’s stare turned to him.

“Number One,” he said, disregarding the outburst. “What is the meaning of this?”

She could see Luther struggle with the direct question. They all had their own issues escaping their father’s control, but Luther hadn’t escaped him until he died. Even then, it wasn’t until he discovered the truth about his mission to the moon that he finally stopped believing in the man.

“Um, I guess," he started diplomatically, "it all started a week ago-”

“We’re from the future,” Five interrupted. “Seventeen years in the future, to be exact. In that future, the world ends, and we didn’t have enough time to stop it. So I gave us time.”

Hargreeves raised an eyebrow.

“That’s a… simplistic version of the story, but yeah, basically,” Luther said.

Allison, like the rest of her siblings, waited with baited breath for the consequences of this. For the yelling, the accusations, the disappointment. Their father was silent. Contemplative.

“Last night you said you saved the world. Was that a lie, then?” He asked.

“Well that’s a loaded question. The world is still here, so I’d say we saved it,” Diego replied defensively.

“But you didn’t. You just went back in time. Technically, you haven’t done anything at all.” Hargreeves refuted. Of course. There was the father they all knew.

“Listen here, old man-”

“Diego!” she chastised. Fighting with him wouldn’t get them anywhere, it never had.

“And you,” Hargreeves said now that she had drawn the attention to herself. “You will never use your powers against me again, do I make myself clear?”

It would be so easy to just agree. To just let it go and save them all from a fight. “It’s been a long time since you were in charge of me,” she said instead.

Their father looked ready to protest, but he was interrupted by Grace’s arrival.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, her voice full of the same innocent uncertainty it was at the funeral.

“Mom,” Diego breathed out. His expression was raw, open in a way Allison hadn't seen in so long. He jumped from his seat and enveloped her in a hug, wrapping his arms tight around her waist since he was too short to do much else.

“Diego?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

The whole thing was probably confusing to her, everyone acting so out of character. Disobeying their father so blatantly.

“N-nothing,” Diego said, voice muffled by how closely he pressed himself to her.

Klaus slipped quietly towards them and latched to her other side, head resting on the opposite shoulder.

“Boys, what is going on with you?” Their mom questioned, but she made no movement to dislodge them. To push them away. She seemed fairly content where she was.

Grace was the one person in the house they could all say they loved. Truly, fully, really loved. Pogo was a… polarizing figure. A supplier of much needed paternal affection one minute and a tool of their father’s control the next. But Grace was pure light and affection, the only source of it in this place, and Allison felt a pang of guilt that she could ever think her a murderer.

If it had been true- if Grace had actually murdered their father- Allison didn’t think she’d have blamed her. She would have accepted it, filed it away with all the other ways her family had failed each other. Moved on.

She looked conflicted now, stuck between her desire to comfort her sons and her physical need to follow their father’s orders. It was hard to watch her juggle with the two. It always had been.

“We did it, right?” Allison said, repeating her words from the night before. “We completed your mission. Everything you wanted from us. So we’re done, now.”

“Done with what, exactly?” Hargreeves ask.

“Everything. You can’t honestly expect us to act like thirteen year olds when we aren’t,” she stated authoritatively. An appeal to logic was the only appeal that ever worked for them, and only in the most roundabout ways.

“Hmm,” Hargreeves surveyed his children, this clearly sinking ship of his. “You’re right, I suppose. Tests will have to be done, of course, to prove that you’re telling the truth. Blood samples, MRI scans, the usual.”

If it were just Allison, she would take the offer and go. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t asking much of them. In the grand scheme of things, he didn’t get to ask them for anything at all.

She looked to Luther first, to see what he thought. His face was scrunched in the way it was when he got angry at their father. The other’s thought he never did, but she knew better. He was just too good at rationalizing the man’s actions to let it boil over. Diego and Klaus could have been on another planet entirely for the attention they were paying the conversation. Five looked as unimpressed as always, but it was Ben’s face that convinced her. She’d never seen him this angry. Not as an adult, and not as a child.

“I think the one thing I always wanted to ask you was if you just didn’t know. All of this was so over the top, so specific. I used to think that maybe you just genuinely didn’t know we were children. Kids. But you did,” Ben’s voice was quiet, but Allison heard every word like a siren. “You just didn’t care.”

“You aren’t kids, you’re more than-”

“Just stop,” Ben interrupted him. “I don’t want to hear any more of it.”

Allison had been expecting at least one or two storm-outs, but she wouldn’t have bet any money on the first one coming from Ben. Klaus looked up from Grace at the outburst, torn between being comforted by his mother and going to comfort his brother. Allison didn’t let him deliberate.

“Take whatever you want, but you’re clearly not gonna get much cooperation from us,” she said.

She stood and placed a hand on Luther’s shoulder. “I’m gonna check on Vanya. Come with me?”

He nodded, and they were the next to leave.

She didn’t make it very far past the dining room before she had to stop. Her breaths were gasping, and she grabbed the wall to keep herself upright. 

“Allison?” came Luther’s alarmed voice. He grabbed her under her arm and supported her. 

“I don’t know how we’re gonna do this, Luther. Any of it. He’s so-” she couldn’t finish the sentence. There weren’t enough words in the English language to finish that sentence. 

“I know,” Luther said quietly. She looked at him. 

He had never agreed with her on things like this before. His strategy was either to defend their father or completely ignore the rest of them. Denial and Egypt and all of that. She didn’t think any of them would ever get over that. At least together, when their father wasn’t there and couldn’t do anything to them, they could speak freely, openly. Find some sort of commiseration among shared experiences. Luther always ruined that. 

“Do you?” she asked, and didn’t let herself feel bad about it. 

The question left him stricken, but he answer anyways. “I didn’t, before. I guess I thought that if I just tried harder, did better, that everything would be ok, eventually. I can’t believe it took me thirty years to realize what you all did in fifteen.” He shook his head ruefully.

“And what’s that?” she asked.

“That he doesn’t care about us, not as people, at least. He cared about his team, but not his kids,” Luther said. The words sounded like pulling teeth but Allison was shocked he would say them at all, let alone while the man in question was sitting a room away. 

She hugged him. It was the only thing to do. When they started to hear more footsteps, she looked up at him. “Upstairs?” she asked. He nodded. 

When they rounded the stairs and headed down the hall, they caught no sight of Ben. He might’ve gone to his room, or maybe even Klaus’. The doors to both of their rooms were still closed, and Allison opened Luther’s quietly. 

They both stiffened. Vanya was awake. 


	3. I Know This Whole Damn City Thinks It Needs You (But Not As Much As I Do)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shut up!” Vanya finally yelled, clutching her hands to her ears. The room shook with the power of her voice. Books fell from Luther’s shelves and a few of his pictures crashed to the floor, the glass shattering on impact.
> 
> Everyone went silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks again for all the amazing comments, I absolutely love reading them!
> 
> I'm still working out a lot with this fic plot-wise, so we may be stuck with a lot of character analysis type stuff until then, but I'm sure y'all don't mind a little fluff before the heavy stuff. Next chapter is gonna be Ben's POV, and honestly it's my favorite thing I've written in a very, very long time. I'm also adding in some headcanon's I've had for the characters and will be updating the tags accordingly. Thank you for reading!

Diego meant what he said at the funeral. Reginald Hargreeves was an awful person, and he was only a father in the absolute loosest definition of the word. Pogo might have missed him, but Diego knew that if he never saw the man again it would be too soon. But if this was what he had to do to have his mom back, then he could play the game again. He would make it work.

Ben left first, which was probably surprising. He didn’t really know how Ben’s personality had turned out, post-death, so this could be in-character for him now. Allison and Luther had left next. Five disappeared, the annoying popping noise that accompanied his tears in space echoing throughout the otherwise quiet room. Klaus had left after a few lingering minutes, probably going off to find Ben. His father, never one to miss the last word, left as well, stomping off towards his study. Diego stayed where he was.

Normally, with the heels, Grace only stood an inch or two below him. But at this age, when they hugged, his ear was the perfect height to press against her heart. Of course, the only thing he heard was the mechanical whirring of the wires under her skin, but that was just as comforting. 

She reached a hand up to run her fingers through his hair and shushed him like a crying child. Even though he wasn’t crying. Ok, so maybe a little, but he thought he deserved a free pass, all things considered. 

“Diego, Diego, hey. Shh. It’s ok,” she reassured him, which wasn’t actually helping with the whole crying thing. 

“No i-it’s- No it’s not!” he said. “It’s not.”

“My scans indicate that you are in perfect health. There have been no incidents with the other children in 13.2 days, and there are no missions either today or tomorrow. I’m afraid I don’t understand, did I miss something?”

To other people, this list of facts might seem impersonal. In Vanya’s book, she talked about the impossibility of their mother’s reality. How, regardless of any emotion they projected onto her, it was more likely that she didn’t feel anything at all then it was that their father had invented the very first sentient machine. That their father _would_ _allow_ her to exist outside of his direct control. But everything part of Hargreeves’ legacy was a failure in one way or another. Diego could see the real Grace, hidden behind the code and the protocol she had to follow. She found workarounds, ways to do what she wanted without breaking their father’s rules. Sometimes she was so much like them that it hurt. 

She was an adult, but she was naive too. Or, she had been. Naivety didn’t really survive living in a house with Reginald Hargreeves. 

Later, Grace had grown more blatant about her transgressions. Diego had never heard her speak out against their father, or even speak ill of him in private, but she had supported all of them in their darkest moments. Picked them up when they fell down. Treating them like children had always been her most blatant crime, and the most unforgivable in their father’s eyes. 

She was their mother. She was Diego’s mother. Nothing she could ever do would change what she meant to him. 

“No, mom,” he replied and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Y-you didn’t miss anything at all.”

And he’d make sure she didn’t, this time around. This time, he wasn’t going to leave her behind, stuck rotting in this war zone that doubled as his childhood home. An entire square block of modern mansion, but there wasn’t an inch inside that wasn’t tinged with trauma and repressed memory. She deserved better than that. 

“Alright,” Grace said, and she sounded lost. Like at the funeral, when her voice had been a thousand miles away. He thought she was just tired, but no, it was the final “Fuck you.” from their father; a failed tamper with her systems to override her core code for his own, selfish purposes.  

“Let’s sit down,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything.”

He started with the basics, the time travel, the end of the world, how they got where they were and why. But those were all so low on the list of things he wanted to tell his mom. He had realized recently that putting things off didn’t always mean you’d get to do them later, especially when it came to telling others how you feel. 

“I love you. You know that, right?” he asked, eyes searching hers. 

“Of course. I love you, too, Diego,” she replied, serenely. 

“No,” Diego said, shaking his head. “Don’t just say it. This isn’t just something you say, it  _ has _ to be something you feel.”

He knew he was asking a lot of her. Asking her to understand things it would take years for her to evolve into. Pain and suffering and love and affection. Messy, human things that she was never supposed to feel. The perfect object to raise Reginald Hargreeves’ children. 

Grace looked at him for a while. Her expression was frozen, her eyes staring blankly past him. He could almost literally see the wheels turning in her head. Her hand stutter-started upwards, then fell back into her lap. Her eyes blinked, once, twice, then a third time.

“I love you, Diego,” she said. It sounded different now. Her vocal processors straining to put something real into it. Something tangible. Diego reached over to hug her again, but his movements were interrupted by another loud pop. He turned his head to see Five, who looked as harried as he had ever seen him. 

“Upstairs,” he said, and then disappeared again. 

Diego deliberated for a moment, then grabbed Grace’s hand and started tugging her towards the stairs. If the others had an issue with Grace being there, they could take it up with him. She wasn’t going to be an auxiliary member of their lives, not like how they’d treated her before. 

The halls were as cold and unwelcoming as ever. Every part of this morning had been a trip down nightmare lane, from waking up in Luther’s room to confronting their father. Diego’s room in the back of the boxing ring was dirty and unkempt- dripping in water and mold- but it was his. His posters, his clothes, his furniture. It felt more like a haven than any room in this building ever had. 

The first clue Diego got about what was going on was the sight of Luther sitting in the hallway outside his room. His back was against the wall, and he kept looking over to the door, then back to his hands. The door in question was open, but only a little, and past it Diego could see the bright, white of the linens and a shock of brown hair. 

He pushed open the door and took stock of the situation. Five was sitting atop Luther’s desk, legs crossed and leaning forward. Klaus and Ben were standing together in the corner, both watching the events unfold anxiously. Allison sat in the middle of the pile, holding Vanya, who stared over her shoulder at the wall. At his entrance, her eyes snapped to him. 

They weren’t colorless, like in the theater. They were normal, Vanya-brown. Some part of Diego relaxed minisculely. 

“Vanya, come on,” Allison said, probably not for the first time. The girl in question stayed silent. 

“Why isn’t she answering?” Allison asked. 

Five looked concerned, which immediately set off alarm bells in Diego’s mind. “She might need time to adjust to everything that’s happening. She used an immense amount of power yesterday, and she was already in a bad place, mentally. It might just take her a while to recuperate.” He sounded unsure. Pandering. Reasoning not only with the room but with himself. 

“I… Are you my sister?” Vanya asked, and the room tensed. Her voice sounded off. Like there was someone else speaking, and the only point of her body was to say the words for whatever was inside of it. “I thought you were bigger.”

Allison laughed without humor. “Yeah, we all were.”

“Where are we?” Vanya asked with that same, uncanny voice.

Allison looked at the rest of them, then put her hand on Vanya’s shoulder. “We’re at home. Do you remember what happened?”

“Everything was… wrong. I was wrong. I was going to make it better,” Vanya said.

Diego felt a flash of anger run hot down his spine. Whatever was going on here, and whoever was speaking, it wasn’t the Vanya he knew. She was the last, jagged puzzle piece left to complete the picture, and she wasn’t even here. She was blank. Pure white. 

“Bullshit,” he replied. 

“Diego!” Came half a dozen voices of reproach. 

“No, if she wanted to kill us all she can just say it. God knows I’ve wanted to kill you guys more times than I can count. But whatever act this is, I’m not gonna go along with it. You did some bad shit, but technically none of it actually happened, so admit it and let’s all move on, yeah?” The last part was directed to her, and he made sure she met his eyes for it. 

“Language,” Grace interrupted them, and Vanya seemed to notice her for the first time. 

“Mom,” she said with the same reverence Diego had at the breakfast table. She tried to stand, break out of Allison’s grip, but her body was weak and the whole movement was more of a lurch. 

“Vanya, sweetheart, are you alright? Diego says you’re sick,” Grace sympathized. “I’ll make soup.” She started toward the door. 

“No, mom,” Her voice was better, not normal but close. “I’m ok.”

“Are you?” he asked and received another round of glares. 

Vanya looked at him again, but this time it was a challenge. A taunt. “Yes.”

There she was. 

“Good,” Diego said. “‘Cause we have some shit to discuss,  _ sis _ .”

“Language,” Grace said again, still looking at Vanya.

Klaus, using what little foresight he had to realize that the upcoming conversation was probably going to be an emotional shitstorm, put his hand on their mother’s arm. “Hey, mom. Maybe we  _ should  _ go make Vanya that soup.” He shot his siblings a glare over his shoulder and mouthed something at them. Probably a colorful insult. 

“No, Klaus, she can stay if she wants,” Diego asserted.

“You’re right,  _ sis _ ,” Klaus mocked. “I just think maybe there are more pleasant ways to explain this Homeric Epic of a shit-storm to her.”

“Boys,” Grace said, and she sounded a little disappointed this time. 

“Sorry, mom,” He and Klaus said at the same time.  

“If you’re all done pretending to understand this-” Five started.

“Oh, compared to what? What future wisdom are you gonna impart on us now?” Diego said. “Cause it seems to me like you ran out of answers a while ago, hot-shot.”

“And it seems to  _ me _ like I’m the only one with any grasp of what’s going on. While all of you were running around like spooked rats, I was the one who-” 

“Now I take offense to-” Klaus interrupted.

“Can you all just please-” Allison joined in, and soon the room was filled with loud, indignant voices. 

Diego looked at Vanya, whose hands started scratching at her wrists. Her eyes flickered rapidly between speakers, and her nails dug deep into the flesh of her arms; so deep, Diego thought she might break the skin. 

“ _ Shut up!”  _ Vanya finally yelled, clutching her hands to her ears. The room shook with the power of her voice. Books fell from Luther’s shelves and a few of his pictures crashed to the floor, the glass shattering on impact.

Everyone went silent. 

Diego’s ears were ringing, and it took long after the room stopped shaking for him to regain his footing. His siblings weren’t doing much better. Five was slumped across the desk, and Allison, being the closest to the source, was lying fetal on the floor, hands firm and flat on either side of her head. Klaus and Ben were both gripping the wall to stay standing. 

The only one unaffected was Grace.

“ _ Just…  _ just shut up, please. I’m so tired of listening to you all talk,” Vanya sounded exhausted again, whatever spark she had shown earlier snuffed out by the use of her powers. 

She huddled down in the blankets again, her hair splaying out on the white linen like a halo. Cecilia, patron saint of musicians, skin as pale as the ivory keys she played. “I think I’d like to be alone now,” Vanya said, and turned away from them all. 

They all filed out after that display, but Diego lingered behind. Gave Vanya one last look. 

Out in the hallway, Luther was fussing over Allison. There was blood trickling steadily out of her right ear, dripping onto her shirt. She seemed out of it, head lolling this way and that as Luther tried to ask her what happened.

“Chill out, dude. Let mom look at her,” Diego reprimanded him. No need to aggravate whatever concussion shit she clearly had going on. 

“Let’s bring this down to the infirmary,” Grace said, switching seamlessly into medic mode. “Make sure her ears are ok.”

She lead Allison towards the stairs, Luther trailing close behind. 

“She’ll be fine.” Diego said. 

Klaus rolled his eyes at him. “Listen. I support whatever self-obsession deal you’ve got going on with that lovely Brother’s Grimm tale Vanya wrote about us, but is right now really the time to be airing out  _ that _ specific grievance? Can we save the group therapy for later?”

“This isn’t about the book,” Diego said. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Klaus waved his hand. “Me and Ben are gonna go raid our rooms for contraband, you have fun with all that repressed hate and everything.”

That left Diego and Five alone in the hallway, drops of Allison’s blood staining the hardwood floor. 

“I don’t hate her, you know,” Diego said. 

Five raised an eyebrow. “Could have fooled me.”

“We were gonna leave. Together, I mean,” Diego said quietly. 

Five raised the other eyebrow. “When was that?”

“We were… fifteen? Sixteen? Something like that. I was learning how to play the bass. And Vanya was… well, Vanya. We were gonna start a band together,” Diego scratched the back of his head. It had been a long time since he had talked about that period of his life. 

“What happened?” Five asked slowly, showing more caution than Diego had seen from him since his return. 

Diego huffed a laugh. “Dad happened, what else?”

Five was quiet for a minute, contemplative. 

“It wasn’t in her book,” he said. 

“No, she didn’t write about it,” Diego said. 

“Why?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” Diego admitted. “But I’d like to find out, and I can’t do that if she’s gone. Or if she’s here, but not really.”

“You know,” Five pushed himself off the wall, started to walk away. “I had you pegged as the dumb one. Might have to change that if you keep saying stuff that actually makes sense.”

“Nah, Luther’s got me beat in terms of sheer stupidity,” Diego smiled.

Five smiled back. “Fair enough.”


	4. Shaking My Head Like We Used To Do (In Better Times)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You could help,” Klaus said quietly, picking at his jeans, head downcast. “That’s why I couldn’t ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I absolutely loved writing this chapter so I hope y'all like it!
> 
> Next chapter is from Five's POV, and of course it's where I started to add real plot to this thing, so it's been kinda frustrating to write. That being said, plot is coming and soon. It's spring break for me, then midterms when I get back, so my schedule is a bit hectic, but I'm gonna try my hardest to stay on top of this.
> 
> Thank you all so much for all of your comments and support. Enjoy!

It had been over a decade since Ben had a body. He had gotten used to the temporaneous nature of ghost-hood, one moment there and the other gone, manifesting only where he wanted, when he wanted. Ghosts existed whether or not Klaus was paying attention to them, but Ben mostly slept when his brother wasn’t with him. Well, it wasn’t _sleeping_ , per se, but that was the closest word he had for the experience. Actual sleep, like the sleep he got last night, was so much better than any phantom physical sensations his spirit had felt.

Yelling at his father had felt pretty damn good, too.

Being back was amazing, but there were still issues. That morning, in the bathroom, he had examined every inch of his skin for the scars and blemishes that had stuck with his spectral self. He didn’t know why his ghost didn’t have the same open wounds and gore attached to it as Klaus’ other ghosts, but he figured it had something to do with how he died. Or with how he lived. He couldn’t really differentiate between the two at this point.

In fact, at this point, he had spent more than a third of his life dead, which was a… really weird sentence.

The scars weren’t there. He had the smooth, non-disfigured skin of his childhood back. Well, as non-disfigured as it had ever been. There was still something off about it, something inherently _other_ about his body. There were parts of him that moved without his permission, his skin sometimes undulating like a mall massage chair or his eyes distorting the world into Dalí-esque scenes of unrealism. So far, there had been minimal interruptions, but he had only been back for twelve hours, so it wasn’t exactly a miracle.

Sitting in Klaus’ room, watching him tear through his belongings, he didn’t much care. Living in the moment hadn’t been his strong suit when he was actually living, but twelve years attached to Klaus- who Ben would argue was the most... _free-spirited_ of them all- had changed a lot about Ben’s priorities.

There was a lot less clutter in Klaus’ room now then there was in the future. Then there will be in the future? Whatever, Klaus’ room was clean-ish. But he came out from under his bed holding a shoebox like a trophy, so it wasn’t entirely devoid of personality.

“This, my good bitch, is everything thirteen year-old me treasured and loved,” he said, cradling it to his chest like a baby.

Ben snorted. “If I remember thirteen year old you, the only thing in that box is candy and a lighter with Billie Joe Armstrong’s face on it.”

“Now, Ben, are you still jealous about that?” Klaus asked with faux shock.

“Just open it,” Ben said, rolling his eyes.

He did. The shoe box was for children’s light-up Sketchers, so Ben had no idea where he had gotten it from or why. The cover was frayed and taped up, and Klaus set it off to the side with some degree of care, and then started bringing out various objects. The first was a handful of empty candy wrappers, which Ben glanced over with humor. Klaus rolled his eyes and kept going.

The next ‘treasure’ was a pen. It was the ugliest shade of green Ben had ever seen, and it had an equally ugly clump of blue fuzz at the end, but Klaus’ smile softened at the sight of it, so Ben kept his judgements to himself. The next couple of items continued in that vein. A tie-dye bouncy ball. A dinosaur figurine smaller than his thumb. A broken chinese finger trap, like the ones they used to get from the arcade four blocks away; the one that would close in two years. The aforementioned Green Day lighter that had set way too many fires in the Academy thanks to Klaus’ pyromaniac streak.    

Under those were the real valuables. Tubes of mascara and glittery eyeshadows. A container of lip gloss shaped like a flip phone. Fake necklaces and even faker earrings.

Klaus was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them, and he knew how his father felt about his more feminine predilections. From what Ben remembered, Klaus only started wearing this stuff regularly after he started getting high regularly. Kinda hard to be more mad at lipstick than cocaine, but their father managed it well enough.

“Alright,” Klaus said once the box was empty. “I showed you mine.”

He wiggled his eyebrows and Ben rolled his eyes again. Being around Klaus as much as he was meant rolling his eyes was his default state. It was more of an idle motion than a conscious action at this point.

“Maybe we should go check on Allison. Y’know, our _injured sister_ ,” Ben reminded him.

“Ah pish posh,” Klaus replied, “She’s a tough girl. A little inner ear trauma isn’t gonna hurt her.”

“You’re unbelievable, you know that,” Ben said.

“Why of course dear, what else would I be?” Klaus put his hand against his chest as though Ben had offered him the sincerest of compliments.

“Whatever,” Ben said, standing from his criss-cross position on the bed. He popped his neck. Holy shit, that felt good.

“Oh, wow. Do I need to leave you alone for a minute?” Klaus teased him.

“Do you have any other clothes?” Ben ignored him. He tugged at the cuffs of his sleeve, the fabric itching against his skin.

“Ah, not really,” Klaus said sheepishly, and shrugged. “Kinda harder to steal than cosmetics.”

“Come on,” Ben sighed. Well, at least he tried. “Let’s go look at all the boring shit in my room.”

Ben’s room wasn’t too far from Klaus’. It was just down the hall and to the right, directly across from Five’s. Ben’s footsteps echoed down the otherwise empty corridor. It was little things like that that tripped him up; his steps making noise, having to walk again in the first place. He had always thought Five’s habit of zapping across the smallest of distances was about being lazy or being a show-off, but he was wrong. It was just the genuinely better way to travel. He said as much to Klaus.

“Just don’t tell him that. There’s already too many overgrown egos in this house,” Klaus said.

“You including yourself in that?” Ben teased.

“Har har,” Klaus rolled his eyes this time.

All of the doors were closed firmly, a habit born of necessity. None of them wanted to invite any extra attention from their father, who was liable to find any and all reasons to punish them. Dirty clothes and loose toys were normal for any child’s room, but they were carefully hidden secrets for the Hargreeves’. His and Five’s doors had remained closed after they were gone, and it had been a long time since Ben had stepped foot inside.

The first thing he noticed was the bed. He hadn’t gone in here for blankets like the others had, too tired to confront the sight of his childhood bedroom. It had a plain, blue duvet with a second, fluffier blanket on top. It was rumpled, unmade. There were a few figurines on his shelves. One of Batman and one of Superman. He had several issues of Detective Comics in the bottom drawer of his desk, hidden beneath historical books his father had forced them to read. In terms of illicit goods, he didn’t keep much besides that, although he knew he had some paperback copies of Harry Potter lying around somewhere.

Klaus wasn’t going to be about as impressed with his stash as Ben was with his. He found all of the aforementioned items and laid them on the bed.

“...Is that it?” Klaus asked.

Ben racked his brain for a moment. He didn’t keep all of his items together like Klaus did, and it had been a long time since he had owned anything. Objects, especially objects that could be considered his, had become somewhat of a novelty to him as a ghost. “Yeah I guess,” he said sheepishly.

“God, I forgot you were such a nerd,” Klaus said, shuffling through the comics.

Whatever. As if any of them had come out of their upbringing without a complicated relationship with superheroes. “Oh, please,” Ben said, “I know you used to take them.”

“I deny any and all accusations,” Klaus sniffed.

They were quiet for a while after that, just flipping through the old books. Klaus didn’t read comic books any more, and he only saw the movies when Ben begged him to. He wanted to ask him what happened, why he did it, but he didn’t need to. Vanya was right. Ben’s death had changed a lot.

“Do you wanna look through the other’s rooms?” Ben said, finally breaking the silence.

“ _God yes,_ ” Klaus practically moaned.

Five was probably in his own room, and Diego too. With Vanya in Luther’s room that left them Allison’s and hers to look through. They started with Vanya’s.

It was small. Klaus’ was small too, but this was barely even a room. More of a spacious closet or a cramped laundry room. One wall was bare brick, chipped and chalky, and the others were water-stained and beige. A single music stand leaned against her dresser, and her bed looked particularly pitiful without anything on it. Ben barely wanted to be in there, let alone nose around for stuff.

“What do you think she would have kept?” Ben asked. He tried to find a neutral spot to look at, but it was all bad.

“I never really thought about how… dead it was in here,” Klaus said instead. He ran his fingers across the walling and rubbed some sort of residue between his fingers. Probably dust. He still started snooping through the drawers of her dresser, so he couldn’t have been too affected by it.

Her violin case was propped against the bed. Ben didn’t want to move it; didn’t want to touch it at all, to be honest. He poked his head under the bed frame, but there was nothing there but dust bunnies. With her room this small, that was Ben’s half done.

Klaus’ search came up with a single fountain pen, probably taken from their father’s study, and a book of Disney sheet music. The _Little Mermaid_ pages were dog-eared. Ben felt kind of sick.

Klaus wasn’t doing much better if the look on his face was anything to go by.

“He ruined everybody’s lives,” Ben said quietly, staring down at the sheet music in his hand. “Prisoners in our own home for the crime of being born. I’m not even mad about the lack of toys or clothes, y’know. Plenty of kids have to go without-”

“Ben,” Klaus interrupted him.

“-that kind of stuff. But he never loved us. Never cared about whether or not we were happy, or whether or not-”

“Ben,” Klaus said, a little more urgently.

“-we were ok with _dying for his stupid mission-_ ”

“Ben!”

“ _What?_ ” He snarled, eyes snapping to his brother. The room had gained an odd red tinge, and his hands were practically vibrating with how much they were shaking. He could feel _It_ writhing under his skin, curling between his ribs and pressing out against the skin of his stomach. Klaus looked upset. Why was Klaus upset?

“Let’s just go, it’s not worth getting mad about,” Klaus said, tense.

Ben went limp, like a puppet whose strings had been severed. “You’re scared of me,” he accused, and he couldn’t help the hot, wet tears stinging at his eyes. There were so many parts of his body to keep in check, to keep calm and restrained. He couldn’t remember half of the tricks he used to use to keep himself from crying or yelling or being controlled by his power.

“No, of course not,” Klaus said, eyes searching his. “I just don’t want you to do something that could get you hurt.” He reasoned.

Ben sat on the bed and ran his fingers over the material of the bare mattress. Textures had been a big thing when he was younger. The bad ones and the good ones. The blanket in his room was a good one, soft and well worn. The uniform blazers were a bad one, but he had gotten used to them over the years. He didn’t quite know if he liked the texture of the mattress, but he needed something to do with his fingers and this was it, apparently.

“I forgot how much I hated having a body,” He tried to joke, but it fell flat for both of them.

Klaus sat next to him, leaned his head on his shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “I get that.”

“I didn’t mean to-” Ben started.

“You don’t have to apologize, mon petit chou. I really do get it.”

They sat like that for a while, the room dimming as the sun passed to the other side of the building. Ben looked over the room again. The bed, the dresser, the desk, all cramped into a room he could stand in the middle of and touch both walls at the same time. There weren’t any decorations like in Luther’s room, or clutter like in Klaus’. It was just a room. Bare. Empty. Blank.

They had been so awful to her growing up, but who hadn’t they been awful to? They had been awful to each other, to themselves, to Pogo and Grace. Kids were awful, vicious things, and Reginald Hargreeves wanted awful, vicious soldiers. No one ever taught them how to be real people, which is why they had ended up as thirty-year-old’s with the emotional maturity of middle schoolers. The thirteen-year-old bodies were cosmic irony at this point.

Being a ghost was a frustrating thing. He couldn’t read books or watch movies without Klaus’ help, and he couldn’t eat or sleep or sense anything at all. Some days he just wanted the simple things back. To feel the air on his skin or to pick up an object, feel the weight of it in his hand. But the lack of sensation meant Ben never felt bad things either, nothing slimy or coarse to send him spiraling. The noises were all muted, but when they were too loud he could just disappear somewhere else, and he never felt the tentacles either, their nauseating pulses against his stomach. He didn’t lose control as a ghost; at least, not until he punched Klaus in the face.

Ben had spent the last twelve years dead, and the last twelve hours alive. Both took some adjusting to.

Klaus’ hair was soft where it tickled his neck. His legs had weight where they swung off the bed. The air was warm where it touched his nape. A thousand sensations he had forgotten in their entirety.

Ben heard noise coming from the kitchen below them, and his stomach growled at the reminder that food existed.

“Wanna check it out?” Ben asked.

Klaus yawned and stretched in an exaggerated manner, then hopped from the bed. Ben did the same, because it felt good to have muscles again, and because it was always fun to make fun of Klaus.

Ben wasn’t sure what he expected downstairs, but the only person down there was Diego, standing on a step stool to look over a pot of unknown contents. Actually, when he thought about how much noise he was making, it made perfect sense that it was Diego.

Ben hadn’t seen his siblings any more than Klaus had, which meant he saw Diego only slightly more frequently than the rest. Which was to say: every two years instead of every five. Diego had adopted the macho look well before he left for the police academy, so seeing him this soft, beardless and scarless, was like looking at a different person entirely.

“Ooh,” Klaus exclaimed, twirling about the kitchen. “And what witch’s potion are _you_ brewing, brother dearest?”

“Soup,” He replied gruffly, but the effect was ruined by the fact that his voice hadn’t dropped yet.

“What kind?” Ben asked.

Diego looked at him. “Tomato,” He said, with a minimal amount of suspicion. “You can have some, if you want.”

Diego turned back to his cooking and Ben went to grab some bowls.

Klaus watched them with squinted eyes. “And am I allowed to join in on this ritual of sharing bread?” He asked.

“It’s soup,” Both Ben and Diego said at the same time, and Ben promptly burst out laughing.

It lasted for a while, Ben’s entire face flushing with exertion at how hard he laughed at that stupid joke. Diego just snorted and shook his head, returning to his task with a soft smile on his face. Klaus pouted.

“I see how it is,” He shook his head tragically. “Ganging up on your brother out of jealousy. Classic. Freudian, even!” He pointed in accusation.

Ben laughed again and set the bowls on the table. When Diego finished he ladled out the soup, leaving plenty left in the pot.

Ben sat next to Klaus, across from Diego. They both dug in, none of them having eaten all day, but Ben was still for a moment. As a kid he never ate much. Breakfasts were left untouched, the eggs too runny and the bacon too greasy. Lunches were picked at, sandwiches deconstructed and rearranged, fruits and vegetables divided into meticulous piles. Dinners were always hit or miss, and he despised sides that touched each other. He wasn’t a rebellious child, quite the opposite, but food always overwhelmed his careful control.

And he hadn’t eaten in so long. He racked his brain trying to remember how it felt. The hot taste on his tongue, sliding down his throat and into his stomach. He dipped his spoon in and brought it to his mouth.

Diego was watching him out of the corner of his eye. Klaus was much less subtle, his entire head turned to watch him. He didn’t really know how to respond.

It was tomato soup, alright. Ben knew what tomato soup tasted like, and this was it. Today had been overwhelming, too many new sensations and too many old emotions, but he knew what tomato soup tasted like because he was tasting it right now. He thought he’d never taste anything again.

“How is it?” Diego asked conversationally.

“Good,” Ben said, and neither of his brothers acknowledged the way his voice broke on the end of it.

“So,” Diego started, steering them blissfully away from Ben’s impending meltdown. “You’ve been here the whole time? With Klaus, I mean.”

Ben and Klaus looked at each other awkwardly. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, not the whole time. But most of it,” Ben ran his hand through his hair to calm the energy now buzzing under his skin.

Klaus adopted an exaggerated ‘I told you so’ face and stared down Diego, who looked away.

“Look, you can’t blame us for not believing you, ok. You’re always pulling shit like this,” Diego said.

“Well, I must be an amazing actress, then. Claiming to see dead brother’s left and right when we only have the one,” Klaus snarked back. He shoved his spoon into the bowl with a little too much force, and a large glob of it splattered onto the table. Ben winced.

“It’s just kind of hard to believe, alright? You never said anything about it before,” Diego’s shoulders were hunched to his ears.

“Ah yes, I should have told you when we were all together. When was that, again? Oh yeah, Dad’s funeral!” Klaus snapped his fingers. “Should have told you then, sorry about that. Slipped my mind with the whole apocalypse thing.”

“There was plenty of time!” Diego exploded, pushing himself up from the table. “There were _years_ , Klaus. Years that you could have reached out to me, could have talked to me about this shit. I get that shit fell apart after Ben died, but there’s not a single person in this house that would have turned you away if you showed up on their doorstep, me especially. I was a cop, I saw the kind of shit that happened, drug addicts dead in alleyways for _days_ before anyone found them. So don’t tell me you didn’t have time, ok? ‘Cause that’s bullshit.”

His breathing was heavy, and both Ben and Klaus were quiet in the wake of his anger. Ben had watched Klaus break down, go from a rebellious teen to a destitute adult in less than a year. Move from alcohol to weed to molly to coke to anything that he could get his hands on. He had seen his brother throw up more times than Ben had ever thrown up in his life, watched him sweat and shake through symptoms and withdrawal. Watched him not care about his life and whether or not he’d still have it when he woke up.

Ben could go where he wanted as a ghost, and the answer had always been the same. Right by Klaus’ side, through everything. They hadn’t been good siblings, but they were siblings nonetheless, blood and water and thickness and all of that.

Klaus looked overwhelmed, clearly put on the spot, and he was silent too long for Diego’s liking.

“Whatever,” he muttered, picking up his bowl and dumping it in the sink. He headed to the door.

“Wait, I-” Klaus took a breath, centered himself. “I know I didn’t make great decisions. But I never did them to spite or hurt you, Diego.”

“I know. You just did them to hurt yourself. Surprisingly enough, that doesn’t make it better.”

“You all made your own choices,” Ben added his voice into the conversation. “It happened, even if it hasn’t yet, and nobody was there for anyone when they needed it. No one gets to take the high ground and nobody gets to be the victim. It was a group effort. Trust me, I got to watch it all play out in high-definition. Fighting isn’t gonna get us anywhere, but talking might.”

Diego snorted, a rueful sort of sound, and shook his head. “Y’know, I forgot how good you used to be at not fighting.”

“Thanks, it was a hard skill to master in this house.” Ben replied cheekily.

“Look,” Diego said, turning his attention back to Klaus. “I’m not blaming you for anything, alright? We all did a lot of shit to get out from under dad’s shadow. I just wish you had felt like I was someone you could turn to, like I was someone who could help.”

“You could help,” Klaus said quietly, picking at his jeans, head downcast. “That’s why I couldn’t ask.”

It was a damning revelation, and despite the fact that Ben had known it for years, it still hit him like a bullet to the chest. And it didn’t fall any softer on Diego, who had only scratched the surface of Klaus’ psychological issues.

Diego approached him, and Ben wasn’t sure what he expected him to do, but he just pulled Klaus into a tight hug, his hands bunching in the fabric of his shirt. Ben laid a hand on his shoulder, and Diego pulled him into the hug too.

Last night, when everyone had gathered on the roof, Ben hadn’t thought he could feel happier about being able to touch his siblings again. But this was a gift he had begged and pleaded for for thirteen years, and his prayers had finally been answered. He was whole, and alive, and his family was there with him, and everything else could be dealt with later.

For now, he let himself be happy.  He deserved it.

 


	5. I Grew Up Memorizing All The Cracks In The Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know you,” she said. Her voice lost its softer qualities and was replaced by a deep, blameful confusion. 
> 
> Well, shit. There went his hope of a simple cup of coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So, writing Luther is... not fun! But it's necessary for advancement in this plot, so that's what the next chapter is gonna be. It's been pretty challenging though, and it's taking a lot longer than I thought it was going to, so this next one might be a little late. Sorry about that!
> 
> I've been loving reading all your comments and I'm sorting through the lot of them and replying to them the next couple of days. Thank you all so much!!

The Academy was an old but well kept building, and it shuttered and groaned in ways Five had forgotten over time. The noises of the apocalypse were fittingly eerie- the drumming of rain and sleet and hail against makeshift roofs, the symphony of wind sweeping through concrete husks, the grand fanfare of structures eroding and falling to further ruin- but they were also comforting, in their own right. Routine is the greatest comfort of all, and something that was once painful need only become familiar to become unnoticeable. And Five knew a lot about familiar pains.

“This was always where I wanted to be,” He said to no one, another familiarity of the apocalypse. Except, he wasn’t talking to no one, he was talking to Vanya, who lay passed out on the floor. It was like talking to no one, but he felt it was an important distinction to make. “Right here. On this day. Whenever I thought about getting back, getting home, it was always today.”

He had it planned out to the second. It would have worked, eventually, and he knew that now, but the commission had offered him better than eventually. People make choices every day of their lives, and Five had made his, and it had landed him exactly where he wanted to be. So why did it feel so fucking awful?

The Commission would come for them, he was sure of that. He was also sure that Reginald Hargreeves would do everything in his power to make sure he retained full control over the seven of them, which was a last resort if Five had ever heard one. They wanted the apocalypse to happen, a completely wiped slate to usher in the new. It didn’t scare them because it didn’t affect them. When the entirety of existence was at your fingertips, some far off end of the world didn’t scare you. 

There were a great many things that terrified Number Five, and death wasn’t one of them. In that regard, the apocalypse was nothing to him. Death and destruction were facts of life, The Commission had gotten that part right, and if it were only his life at stake Five wouldn’t have cared in the slightest. But he had seen the reality, and it wasn’t his corpse in the smoking ruins of this groaning building, it was his siblings’. His family. 

“I never found your body,” He told Vanya. None of them were religious, but time travel had acquainted him with enough religious customs, and he had always found confession an interesting form of self-flagellation. “All of the others were in the house, when it happened. But not you, not Ben. When I read your book, I lost hope on Ben, but you… I figured if I never found you, that meant you could be alive somewhere. Schrödinger’s sister.”

Vanya’s head twitched in her sleep. He huffed. Five didn’t want to admit it, but he missed Delores. He missed her cold, smooth skin and her thousand yard stare. She was never impressed with him, never put up with his shit. She would have quite a few scathing remarks for the self-pitying state he was in. He wanted to hear every word. 

Talking to other people was… a lot. They had a lot of opinions, and they moved around a lot, and they said things that didn’t matter a lot. Asked questions that didn’t matter a lot. Called him things he had honestly forgotten about. Working with The Commission had afforded him some semblance of human interaction, but it was more robotic than anyone could have asked for and his assignments had never required much talking, which he had appreciated. Conversation had never been his strong suit, even without the decades of only talking to Delores. 

“I read your book. A lot, actually. I wanted to know everything I missed, everything I didn’t get to be a part of. I have some complaints about my chapter,” Five couldn’t say whether he wanted Vanya to be awake for this or not. He didn’t think he would be saying much at all if she was. “But… thank you, for writing it. I wouldn’t have known anything about you all if you hadn’t.”

He was only in the room because he was sure no one would be here after her earlier episode, and in all honesty he didn’t want to be alone. In his lap were the papers he was using as a makeshift notebook. He had spent all morning transcribing any and all relevant equations and information for their current situation. The world could end in lots of ways, ice and fire and collapsing moons, but Five was going to make sure Vanya had zero part in it. 

He thought about Delores again as he scribbled down the exact date and time they had traveled. Viewing the world in numerics was about as hard as one would think, but Five was used to it by now. Numbers were a comfort they had never been growing up. They made sense, more so than Reginald Hargreeves’ personal biases about the importance of his children. They’d asked him if he wanted a name, but he truly didn’t. ‘Five’ was bigger now than anything their father ever gave them, names especially. Delores liked his name, anyway. Said it made him unique. 

Despite all of the numbers he had memorized, he didn’t actually know when Delores was created. A well worn copyright placed her manufacture date sometime after 2008, but beyond that he had no idea. 

She, like a lot of things, was gone, and she wouldn’t be back any time soon. 

Five heard yelling downstairs, muffled but loud, and he strained to hear it. It didn’t sound like their father, so he left it alone. 

His head was still off, cottony and in agonizing pain. He had never time-traveled with anyone else, not with his own powers, and seven people at once was not a good place to start. Theoretically, and practically, it worked, but Five was exhausted. 

However, sleep eluded him like it always did. 

With that thought, he straightened his papers, zapped to his room, and placed them carefully in a bag, then zapped out of the Academy. There wouldn’t be coffee in that place, so he needed to go elsewhere. 

On the street outside of the Academy, he started towards his destination. People glanced at him as he passed, the same idle curiosity they always had at the sight of them wearing school uniforms in the dead of summer. He tugged at the hem of his shirt. The uniform had been fine for the past week; with so much to do and so little time to do it, clothing didn’t seem important. However, with the ever growing probability that he was stuck like this, he knew he needed something else to wear. And soon, preferably. 

He checked the pockets of his jacket and came back with three dollars and fifteen cents, so clothes would have to wait. Coffee, however, was well within his budget, and he knew where he was going to get it. 

Griddy’s Doughnuts was three blocks from the house, and a gamble he wasn't entirely sure why he was making. The last time he came here it had been for the express purpose of meeting the opposition on neutral ground. If they came to the Academy, it would have been disastrous. It  _ had  _ been disastrous. Five thought about what would happen if they stormed the Academy now and almost laughed, then he thought about it some more and the urge went away. His father’s suffering wasn’t worth risking his siblings. Not now, and not ever. 

He rounded the corner and came face to face with the shop he had killed four men in. Not a record for him, and certainly something that, a year ago, would have been unremarkable, but this last week had been different. He hadn’t killed them to complete an assignment, to influence the world in any grand, snowballing manner. It was just to protect himself. Just to move past the moment and get back home.

_ ‘Home,’  _ Vanya wrote, _ ‘Is a confusing and empty word. I do not think that it is a place.’  _ Five was inclined to agree with her. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that home was other people, or where his heart was, or any other cliche bullshit, but the Academy wasn’t his home just because he grew up there. Empty, it meant nothing, but when it was full… well, that was another story.  

There was a cluster of cars in the parking lot, and when he opened the door a tiny bell sounded, drawing the eye of the other patrons. Five sat at the counter, but catalogued the other occupants as well as he could. There was a family in one of the corner booths, a little girl with ice cream dripping down her chin and two parents who glared at each other over the bill. There were three waitresses that Five could see, because this place had once been a place of quality, greasy diner food. One was pouring coffee into two older men’s cups, he noted with interest and caution. Interest at the sweet, black tar pouring out of the kettle, and caution at the capable looking men who were drinking it. 

A harried looking woman manned the counter, and Five felt nagging sense of familiarity when he looked at her. She was younger, for sure, but it looked like the same woman who had served him a few days ago. Seventeen years from now. 

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said as she shuffled through several receipts. Her voice was high and pinched, an attempt at inoffensive tone in the face of upset. 

“That’s fine,” he said, and sat himself on the plastic stool.

The woman did three things in quick succession. First, her brow furrowed and she stopped her movements. Second, she looked up at him with the same spark of recognition he had felt moments before. And finally, she spoke. 

“I know you,” she said. Her voice lost its softer qualities and was replaced by a deep, blameful confusion. 

Well, shit. There went his hope of a simple cup of coffee. 

“What do you mean?” he asked, because he hadn’t lied when he said they used to sneak here as kids. If she had worked here for any length of time, she might have seen them, might have had a grudge about the messes they tended to leave in their wake. He doubted it, though. Grudges didn’t give people the desperation he saw in her eyes. 

She gave him another, deeper look and pointed an accusatory finger. “I remember you. From last week, or...” her brow furrowed again, “or a while from now. I’m not really sure how this works.”

Five figured he could pretend to be confused, but he didn’t bother. The connection had already been made. Hazel, swimming before his very drunk vision, pointing a gun and talking about a donut shop. He had something to do with this, which wasn’t necessarily good or bad news, but was definitely news nonetheless. 

“Keep your voice down,” he said, and looked back to the men at the table. They didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything other than their food. 

“So you do know about this! Hazel said he was gonna figure it out, but I didn’t know what to do. He said ‘just act normal’ but I’m not sure I can with everything that’s been going on,” she sounded confused, but not upset, which was good. Five wasn’t particularly fond of dealing with upset people, and he certainly wasn’t  _ good _ at it. 

“Where is Hazel?” he asked, because it was probably good to get all of his time-traveling ducks in a row. 

“At home,” she said. 

“Can you take me to him?” Five asked. 

She looked around for a second, then back to her station. “I’m not sure, my shift doesn’t end until three.”

Five stared at her and waited for the punchline. Except, she was serious, and Five apparently had to deal with that. “And?” he asked through gritted teeth. 

“Right,” she said, and looked around again. She flagged one of the other waitresses who smiled at her patrons then approached the two of them. 

“What’s up, Agnes?” she asked and popped her gum. She was significantly younger than the other’s, yet it seemed like she had at least some sort of authority, because Agnes asked her for permission to leave. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, concerned. 

“Oh, I’m fine,” Agnes replied. “Just getting older. Not feeling very good.”

“Well,” the other girl said, and surveyed the rest of the restaurant. “It’s not to busy. We should be ok without you for the rest of the day. I hope you feel better.” She put a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

Agnes untied her apron and gave the girl a grateful nod. Five watched her disappear through the back and left too, rounding around the front of the shop. 

“Where are we going?” he asked. 

“Not far, I only live a few blocks away,” she said, and gestured towards what Five assumed was the direction of her house. This assumption was further compounded by the fact that she started walking in that direction. 

“And that’s where Hazel is?” he confirmed. Today had been long, annoying, and tedious, and he didn’t have the patience to waste time on miscommunication. 

“He should be,” she said, so he followed her. 

It really wasn’t that far of a walk, but Five loathed it anyway. In the future, with nobody to stick behind for, he mostly teleported everywhere. Teleporting to and from his base with a bag to carry supplies was easier than the wagon he originally used. He still couldn’t take too much back and forth, but most days he just didn’t have the patience to  _ walk _ where he needed to be. Walking, like eating or drinking or waking up in the morning, was something that took energy that Five mostly didn’t have. 

“How do you and Hazel know each other?” she asked, and shot him a considering look. “Are you in that… organization?”

So she was at least slightly informed. Good for her. “Used to be,” he said. 

“Like Hazel, then,” and her voice went softer at then end. Ah, young love. 

The apartment was a dodgy looking thing, which made sense on a waitress’ salary. Five wondered, not for the first time, what this woman had done to compel Hazel away from his mission. Five had left because he had never truly been one of them in the first place, but Hazel didn’t have that excuse, he and Cha-Cha were killers through and through. At least, that’s what he thought. He had been wrong about quite a few things, recently. 

There was a lot of... kitsch. Bold, bright patterned blankets hung off the couch, a large grandfather clock stood in the corner with dogs carved into an intricate design, and every conceivable surface was covered in tchotchkes. Five, who had grown up with Reginald Hargreeves’ special type of eccentricism, wasn’t phased. It was probably nicer than all the weird paraphernalia in the library at home, if only because it looked like an actual  _ home _ . Like someone had hand picked each item, not because they were expensive, or because they fit a certain aesthetic, but because they plain and simple wanted it. 

Hazel’s massive frame was unavoidable, looming over the dining table with half a dozen papers spread out under his gaze.

“Hazel?” Agnes said quietly, dropping her items by the door.

“I didn’t think you’d get out that early,” he replied without looking up from his papers.

“Well,” Agnes said, and she and Five shared a look. “I ran into someone at the diner and-”

Hazel tensed, his shoulders rounding his ears. Then he carefully drew his weapon and turned to them. 

Five could have laughed at the expression on his face, but he had a reputation to uphold. “Got any coffee?” he asked instead. 


End file.
